October 24, 2005

Being Gay In Namibia

by hilzoy

Here's the sort of story that makes me love the Washington Post, and all other newspapers that have staffs large enough that they can cover interesting topics in obscure places. It's on gay rights activists in Namibia:

"As a boy of 14, Petrus Gurirab worried that he was gay. Seeking advice from a trustworthy adult, he went to see a teacher who had treated him kindly.

"I have feelings for other boys," Gurirab recalled telling her. "Like love feelings." There was a long silence.

"My advice is that it's not African" to be gay, the teacher replied, using a slur for the term. "Ignore those feelings and try girls."

She also apparently gossiped with colleagues. Other teachers started teasing Gurirab, asking him why he didn't play soccer and why he spent so much time around his mother. Then one morning, he said, the gym teacher invited him into his office, locked the door and forced him onto the desk for sex.

"Let's see how good you are at it," the teacher said, according to Gurirab, now 25, who recounted the story through tears. The ordeal left his legs and arms with red bruises. The next day, distraught and confused, he had sex with a female classmate."

I'm sure she had a marvelous time. Back to the story:

""I wanted to change so badly and not be gay . . . but I couldn't," he said. "I knew I liked men. I decided I would kill myself. . . . I was so desperate I called a lifeline in London. They saved my life."

Un-African. Un-Christian. Anti-family. Witchcraft.

In many African countries, being gay is considered all of those things. It is also illegal in most of them, so taboo that a conviction for homosexual acts may bring more jail time than rape or murder. Only in South Africa is being gay widely accepted and protected by law. From Uganda, where homosexuality is punishable by life imprisonment, to Sierra Leone, where a lesbian activist was raped and stabbed to death at her desk last year, homophobia has long trapped gays in a dangerous, closeted life. With no places to meet openly, no groups to join, it seems sometimes that gay men and lesbians in Africa don't exist at all.

But in Namibia, a growing national debate about homosexuality has followed a period of harsh condemnation, and gay rights groups now operate openly in the capital, Windhoek. One of them is the Rainbow Project, where Gurirab works as a suicide prevention counselor. The organization has interviewed gay Africans from across the continent, and its leaders say they believe the time is right to challenge prejudices and start a wider discussion on what being gay really means. "The only answer is education," said Linda Baumann, 21, who grew up in a tribal community and was expelled from it when she revealed she was a lesbian. She now lives in Windhoek and hosts a radio program about gay issues. "We have to have courage and stick up for ourselves.""

Life is still dreadful for gays in much of Africa, though:

"The Rainbow Project must use extreme discretion when trying to conduct research outside Namibia -- let alone urging other gays across Africa to demand their rights. In Somalia, for example, armed militiamen frequently stone gays. In Egypt, Baumann said, "you will just get killed." Ian Swartz, the Rainbow Project director, said that even when he was in Nairobi, the cosmopolitan capital of Kenya, he had difficulty meeting gay men until he arranged a late-night meeting with a stranger. He arrived at a club after midnight, "and there it was -- an underground gay community in Kenya." The men he met told him "harrowing" stories, he said. "I felt really sad afterward, but I learned a lot."

Treatment of gays, group members said, ranges from social ostracism to physical attacks. In rural Namibia, they found, about 80 percent of gay men and lesbians were forced to marry and have children. In many countries, gay people were often depressed and reported having covert same-sex relations outside heterosexual marriages. Gay students may drop out of school or face beatings for being "funny," Baumann said. Some are put through violent "cures." In Tanzania and Botswana, there were more than a dozen reports of lesbians being raped in an effort to persuade them to marry men."

Parenthetically, why would anyone think that raping a woman would make men more attractive?

"But Swartz said the Rainbow Project also found a long history of ethnic groups giving tribal labels to those who are gay -- some negative, but others neutral. "That proves that it wasn't a European import," Swartz said. "It's as African as being straight, and it was always here."

Throughout African history, gays have been accepted in some tribes. Lesbians were sometimes seen as having mystical powers, and in South Africa they acted as traditional healers. In times of conflict or drought, however, gays were used as scapegoats and blamed for not producing babies to repopulate their regions, according to researchers of same-sex practices in Africa.

European missionaries further demonized homosexuality, and church pulpits remain bastions of anti-gay rhetoric in Nigeria and several other countries. Politicians also have found gay-bashing a useful way to deflect criticism from unpopular policies. Daniel arap Moi, who ruled Kenya for 24 years, once declared: "Kenya has no room or time for homosexuals and lesbians. It is against African norms and traditions and is a great sin." Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe recently dismissed gays as "lower than pigs and dogs."

In Namibia, gays said there was a relatively relaxed climate in large cities in the years before and after independence from South Africa in 1990, and gay couples in Windhoek could hold hands in the street. But in the mid-'90s, they said, a chilling change occurred. "The first five years after independence it was like a utopia," Swartz said. "People were proud to be gay. But when Namibian leaders' promises fell through and poverty did not improve, the government became increasingly unpopular. . . . The leaders were looking for a smokescreen and someone to blame."

In 1996, the public campaign against homosexuals began, after a group of cross-dressing men used a women's restroom during a rally of the ruling party. At the time, unemployment was at 60 percent and opposition parties were on the attack. Days later, then-President Sam Nujoma gave his first anti-gay speech, saying that "homosexuals must be condemned and rejected." Suddenly, many officials were bashing gays. One minister called homosexuality a "behavioral disorder which is alien to African culture."

In response, the Rainbow Project was formed. Members went to churches and schools, and showed up on TV talk shows. They held workshops with Namibia's Human Rights Organization, which was respected for protesting corruption, police brutality and domestic violence. (...)

As the climate has improved in Namibia, Rainbow Project members now say they hope to replicate their success in other countries. "What is hopeful is that we are having a national conversation. When I saw people from the Rainbow Project on TV, I knew they were helping young gay people out there who were really suffering," said Helmuth Oxurub, 35, who works in a furniture store in the coastal town of Swakopmund. "We want to say to people, 'You know us in everyday life, we are here and we aren't so bad.' People really seem to accept that message.""

Truly, any ray of hope for gays in Africa is a wonderful thing. Kudos to the Post for the story.

Comments

In times of conflict or drought, however, gays were used as scapegoats and blamed for not producing babies to repopulate their regions, according to researchers of same-sex practices in Africa.

And there it is.

I watched a program on wolves the other day. Each pack's social hierarchy includes a scapegoat: the one wolf that the others will turn on when things don't go their way. So long as food is plenty and life is easy, the scapegoat is more or less left along, but when times get tough, the others become aggressive toward the scapegoat. But, and this is key, they do keep the scapegoat within the pack. In the particular pack the show focused on, when the scapegoat was killed, the rest of the pack went into mourning. She was still one of them.

The fact that some humans are treated as scapegoats makes us no better that a pack of wolves. The fact that some humans see fit to kill those scapegoats makes even wolves infinitely superior.

It's a pretty well-done article, but I have a small quibble with your post: obscure? Only from a US-centric point of view. I realize that the US is powerful and, well, where we are, but let's not exacerbate the distance by portraying places like Namibia (neighbor, after all, to emerging global player South Africa) as "way out there." It's closer, literally and metaphorically, than we think. Indeed, in a sense, that's the point of the article.

I split my time between the US and South Africa, so this is just a pet peeve of mine.

Michael: first, I envy you spending lots of time in Southern Africa. I was there for a bit over a month, and have been trying to find my way back ever since.

Second: no place is obscure to itself, but I think lots of places are obscure sort of generally. And while I agree with you (I think) on the importance of S. Africa, I think that Namibia is an obscure country generally, along with (say) Turkmenistan, Mongolia, Burkina Faso, Andorra, and so on. These are all places I love from afar, but they are not really at the center of many things (even though Andorra is between France and Spain, and Turkmenistan and Mongolia are next to Russia), which is really all I meant.

my name is Wolfgang Schneider, I am a Software Engineer and I am hosting a new Website called www.wellInNamibia.com .

The sites objective is to interest persons from the 1st world to contact persons in Namibia. Once communication has been established, the website suggests a holiday for the 1st world participant to Namibia, giving her/him the opportunity to meet her/his acquaintances in person. We provide support for posting Namibian citizens and for travel assistance.

The target group is hence single persons from the so called "1st world", who always wanted to travel to Africa.

The project has given much attention during my stay in Namibia in December and we are confident to create many synergies in the future. In particular the gay and lesbian community embraced the idea with much enthusiasm.

If you are interested in linking your site with www.wellInNamibia.com and/or spread the word please contact me.